Randy Foye returned to action on Saturday but forgot to watch out for teammates’ shenanigans. (Photo By John Leyba/The Denver Post)

There’s never a bad time for a good practical joke. The Nuggets, more than most teams, are acutely aware of this.

That’s why Randy Foye’s return on Saturday night after missing 26 straight games with a quad injury was the perfect time for one of the oldest tricks in NBA players’ books: The Fake Substitution. Read more…

DALLAS — On Wednesday night, Brian Shaw was a frustrated Nuggets coach after watching his team part like the Red Sea on many occasions defensively, allowing repeated drives to the rim, even though his team nabbed a victory over the Mavericks. And even though they held Dallas to 41 percent from the field, which isn’t shabby.

But the Nuggets, through their five-game winning streak, have been successful largely because, for the second significant stretch this season their defense has tightened. They are a plus-11.6 during the stretch, holding opponents to 98.2 points per game. The Nuggets are 10-2 this season when holding opponents under 100 points. Read more…

Turnover story. After a solid start to the season in holding down turnovers, the Nuggets have taken steps back in that area of late. On Wednesday they committed 21 turnovers, which the Magic converted into 18 points. Film study reveals that Orlando should be given a credit for being active with their hands and in getting into passing lanes to force some of those miscues. But others could have been prevented.

The bad pass turnover was the Nuggets’ worst enemy, as they were simply attempting passes that had no shot of getting to the target. Orlando forced a few with pressure defense, but many of the 12 didn’t have to happen. Things like getting into the air with nowhere to go and having to force a pass that got picked off. There were four lost ball turnovers, three traveling and two screening turnovers. From Dec. 1 to today, the Nuggets have turned the ball over fifth-most in the NBA, at 15.2 per game. Read more…

The Nuggets are 2-0 since coach Brian Shaw first publicly discussed pushing the time of his team’s shootarounds back from the traditional morning walkthrough to the new afternoon sessions.

Officially, they are 2-1 because they didn’t have one in their New Year’s Day game at Chicago either — and lost — but most important to Shaw is how the Nuggets are playing. They’ve had just one bad quarter in the last three games (the fourth in Chicago), and in each one they’ve gotten off to fast starts.

“I didn’t want to just measure it in wins and losses,” Shaw said. “In the Chicago game I thought our energy was good to start the game out. And it’s been really good at the start of all of these games. So, we’re keeping an eye on it.”

The Nuggets, looking to avenge their 12-point loss in Houston last Saturday and hoping to get back on the winning path, came close Wednesday as they hosted the Rockets. Arron Affalo sunk a three at the buzzer to send the game into overtime, but James Harden’s eights points in OT and 41 total on the night, plus Dwight Howard’s 24 points and 16 rebounds proved too much for Denver as it lost, 115-111.

Setting a patient tone. The Nuggets’ first three possessions of the game were arguably their most efficient, getting them calmed down early and setting a nice foundation in the half court that they could build upon. Each of the first two possessions featured great reads from the passer, multiple passes and the ball finding the hands of a player that had the space to do something with it.

But it was the third possession of the game that was the Nuggets’ best.

Kenneth Faried has had to fight through a rough start to his season. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

A couple of weeks ago, Kenneth Faried expressed concern with the state of his game and the start he’s had to this season. In an interview with The Denver Post, he called it “awful” but hoped that December would bring a change.

It hasn’t. Not yet, anyway.

In fact, this month has brought injury to the insult of not being able to get going the way he’d like. Faried’s missed the last two games with a low back strain, and when he has played he’s appeared many nights to be a shell of his former Manimal self. Read more…

Timing is everything. With 28.3 seconds left in regulation, and game tied at 102, the decision was made to run a Ty Lawson/Timofey Mozgov screen-roll. The play call was just fine. The problem came when the Nuggets also decided to run the clock down a much as they did before getting into the action. The Raptors – predictably – trapped Lawson on the play forcing him to have to scramble to get the ball to someone who could do something with it. The end result was the Nuggets didn’t even get a shot off before the shot clock expired. Had that play been run a few seconds sooner, the Nuggets would have had time for Toronto to stop the initial action and still remain unrushed in adjusting to get a quality look off. But when they were forced to do something against a clock ticking down on them, they couldn’t find the look they wanted in time, passing the ball too many times.

ATLANTA – Three takeaways the morning after the Nuggets’ 96-84 loss to Atlanta on Sunday afternoon.

Finding a few good reserves. The Nuggets bench suffered through one of its worst outings all year long, which would have definitely qualified for the worst outing had Alonzo Gee not played so well in the second half. If you remove Gee’s 14 points on 7-of-9 shooting, the rest of the reserves went 4-of-26 from the field, including 0-of-11 from the 3-point line. Still, off shooting nights happen. The bigger issue is the lack of faith in the bench that crept into Nuggets coach Brian Shaw’s mind. “Sometimes I feel like I can’t take (the starters) out, and I know that I have to,” he said afterward. Read more…

Nuggets coach Brian Shaw is well into his tenure, having coached 100 games. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

WASHINGTON — In this presidential city, one that measures job progress after just 90 days and checks in frequently thereafter, Nuggets coach Brian Shaw was asked to take the temperature of his tenure after 100 games. Shaw’s 100th game coached was Tuesday’s game against Portland.

1. Rotation matters. In the last two games, the Nuggets have doled out the lion’s share of the minutes to these five players – Ty Lawson, Arron Afflalo, Wilson Chandler, Kenneth Faried, Timofey Mozgov. Here’s how that breaks down: Those five, the Nuggets’ starting five, have played 44 minutes out of a possible 96, so 45 percent of the time.

Nuggets coach Brian Shaw directs his team during its win Monday over Cleveland. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

CLEVELAND – Three takeaways the morning after the Nuggets’ 106-97 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday.

1. Starters revenge. Let’s face it: The Nuggets’ starting crew has been a battered bunch – from criticism. And justifiably so in most every case; it hadn’t been a noteworthy early season for them as the Nuggets routinely got out to slow starts and in some cases carried those slow starts throughout feet-in-quicksand full-game performances. But on Monday the starters were the stars. They were the source of the vast majority of production – 81 of the Nuggets’ 106 points, 26 of the 39 rebounds, 17 of the 25 assists – kept the pressure up defensively, the pedal to the metal offensively and made the majority of the game-changing plays. Read more…

Nuggets guard Arron Afflalo clears out some room between himself and New York guard Pablo Prigioni during Sunday’s game. (Photo by Alex Goodlett/Getty Images)

NEW YORK – Three takeaways the morning after the Nuggets’ 109-93 loss to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

1. Connelly staying calm. None of this is what anyone in the Nuggets organization, most of all general manager Tim Connelly, wanted. The Nuggets’ 2-7 start – with a game coming up in Cleveland looming – is exactly the opposite of what he’d envisioned the start for his rapidly-healing team might be. But it has underperformed. Still, at this point Connelly says he’s not pressing the panic button. “Certainly we’ve struggled,” he said after the game. “But it’s early.” Read more…

1. Finding Afflalo. On Sunday morning, after the team meeting adjourned, Arron Afflalo stayed with coaches to watch more film and ask questions about how he could get a better foothold on his role in the offense. It has been a lukewarm start for Afflalo, now averaging 10.8 points, but against the Trail Blazers he appeared much more fluid within the Nuggets’ offense, which doesn’t necessarily target any one player. Afflalo looked more confident in getting to his spots and more decisive and confident with the ball and more at ease with what his teammates were doing around him.

Nuggets coach Brian Shaw attributed his season-high 18 points on 8-of-14 shooting to Ty Lawson’s presence back in the lineup. “I think it was a direct correlation with the return of Ty and his aggressiveness that got him going,” Shaw said. “So hopefully they’ll continue to find a groove and figure it out.”

PORTLAND – The sitting was getting to J.J. Hickson. He knows he was to blame for his season-opening five-game suspension, but on Sunday he was ready to start to make it right.

Nuggets guard Arron Afflalo goes up for two of his 18 points against Portland on Sunday. (AP Photo/Don Ryan)

His eight points and 10 rebounds was a solid place to start.

“I thought he was active,” Nuggets coach Brian Shaw said. “He got eight points and grabbed 10 rebounds and that’s huge. That’s something he can really do, he’s an elite rebounder per minute when he’s in the game at his position.”

Hickson played 14 minutes in his return, which came against Portland, his former team. He’s also coming off of ACL surgery earlier this year and is limited to 20 minutes per game for the time being. Afterward he expressed encouragement with his first outing. Read more…

And yes he has opinions on the Nuggets. This is part of what he said about his former team in an interview with The Post, for my weekly Nuggets/NBA column, which will be available on Sunday.

On the difficulty of mixing and matching players with minute-restrictions: “I always liked that stuff. I liked ‘Okay, he can’t play tonight or he can only play 20 minutes.’ Because anytime you limited me, it opened up the opportunity for something else. And I’ve always enjoyed that, because in the CBA you had a lot of that.” Read more…

Nuggets players Kenneth Faried, left, and JaVale McGee watch during their game against the Kings on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

All options remain on the table for Nuggets coach Brian Shaw in his quest to get his team headed in the right direction. The main issue at the moment is the starting five, which has not performed up to par through the first four games, putting a particular bad taste in Shaw’s mouth after getting down big early in the Nuggets’ loss at Sacramento on Wednesday.

“What I have to do better is recognize when we don’t get off to a good start and when guys aren’t really getting into it, then I have to immediately go to the bench, use a timeout quicker, cut these runs. You start the game 0-0, look up and we’re down 12 already or down 20. So that’s on me.” Read more…

Nuggets coach Brian Shaw says there is plenty to smile about this preseason. (Jeff Haynes, The Associated Press)

On Monday, Nuggets coach Brian Shaw was asked what has surprised him most this preseason.

These things, he said: “I would say (Jusuf) Nurkic is the biggest surprise, pleasant surprise. Alonzo Gee I think has been really good in terms of his defense and his physicality out there on the floor. Randy Foye, because of the way that … I don’t know that he’s shot the ball great, but the last game when Ty (Lawson) was out, he had to be the point guard. He was a facilitator and he made some great decisions out there. I thought he ran the team really well.

“And then (Timofey Mozgov) has been very, very consistent as well in terms of what he’s bringing to the table offensively. He’s shooting technicals, if you haven’t noticed, because he has the highest free throw percentage even out of all our guards. So I’m allowing him to shoot the technicals until somebody gets a free throw percentage higher than his. And (Danilo Gallinari), when he’s played he’s been aggressive offensively and he’s made things happen in a short amount of time. I’m excited.

Chris Dempsey arrived at The Denver Post in Dec. 2003 after seven years at the Boulder Daily Camera, where he primarily covered the University of Colorado football and men's basketball teams. A University of Colorado-Boulder alumnus, Dempsey covers the Nuggets and also chips in on college sports.